{"id":41170,"date":"2022-10-09T21:12:44","date_gmt":"2022-10-10T01:12:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.runkevinrun.com\/?p=41170"},"modified":"2022-10-09T21:12:44","modified_gmt":"2022-10-10T01:12:44","slug":"the-long-and-windy-beach-get-back-to-where-youve-run-before","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/?p=41170","title":{"rendered":"The Long and Windy Beach … Get Back To Where You’ve Run Before"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

Thirteen years ago, my brother and I ran the Long Beach Half Marathon. I was commuting back and forth to England for a project that proved incredibly time consuming… but I still tried to make time for me and for my family.<\/p>\r\n

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In 2018, I ran the full marathon<\/a>.

Inbetween, I ran a number of events that used part of the beach path for their courses.

And so I should have known what I was getting myself into this morning. Yet somehow I had forgotten the views of the Queen Mary, the lighthouse, and the CalState Long Beach Pyramid.<\/p>\r\n

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I also, even having run as many marathons as I have, seem to forget just how LONG 26.2 miles can be.<\/p>\r\n


Life lessons from the Long Beach Marathon:

1) If there is a race day packet pickup, especially for “local” events, I should just pay the extra fee and avoid the mess of going back and forth multiple times. I had to drive down from Hollywood to Long Beach on Friday to pick up my bib… and it was a traffic filled nightmarish trek. The one benefit is that I was able to park and bib and exit the parking structure within the 30 minute grace period so at least I didn’t have to pay for parking!<\/p>\r\n

2) A race that starts at 6 AM is tough on the wake-up, but pleasant for getting it over with… even if one’s time is slower than hoped for.<\/p>\r\n

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3) If good fences make good neighbors, non-existent fences make for who knows what?<\/p>\r\n

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4) I’m still not sure how to get back to pre-pandemic shape. Once again, I had a decent first half that collapsed in the second half. Today I was able to hold off the 3:25 pace group through 2\/3 of the event… and then it all went downhill as the course went rolling along.<\/p>\r\n

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5) Fifteen thousand people were involved in the various races of the weekend. They say there were only 1942 marathoners but man were there a lot of people. And I suppose the half marathon had to have a much larger field. But the whole thing felt like a super spreader event waiting to happen. I masked when I could in crowds but rehydration and chocolate milk cartons made me doff the mask a bit too often.<\/p>\r\n

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6) The “beach” section of the Long Beach Marathon is maybe 5-6 miles out of the whole thing. The rest is neighborhood and city streets.<\/p>\r\n

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7) Finishing matters sometimes more than clock times… but man, do I wish my clock times were getting better.<\/p>\r\n

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8) Every finish line is but the start line for the next adventure.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thirteen years ago, my brother and I ran the Long Beach Half Marathon. I was commuting back and forth to England for a project that proved incredibly time consuming… but I still tried to make time for me and for my family. In 2018, I ran the full marathon. Inbetween, I ran a number of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41170"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41175,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41170\/revisions\/41175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runkevinrun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}